Courage by Malachi Whitaker. Part 4.
Watch on KineScope.
Isabel moved away from Mr Bentley, who smelt of old clothes, old fish, and cough medicine inextricably blended. Reggie came quietly in. Mr Bentley took off his outdoor glasses and put on another pair, which had a long black ribbon tied at the side of them, stared at him fixedly and said, ‘Where have you been? I bet you left the office door open, and that means sudden death, you know.’
Isabel noticed that the boy was very small for his fifteen years. But he had upstanding fair hair, a stiff Eton collar on, very short trousers and very dirty knees.
‘I’ve been helping with the fire,’ he said in a rapt voice. ‘You ought to see Peckett’s place. It’s soaking, and every window’s broken. I’ve been on the roof!’
Mr Bentley leaned over towards Isabel and said in a croaking whisper, ‘This boy doesn’t exist yet. He’s only been here a couple of weeks. But the last one was a corker. He was sliding down the banisters and fell between ’em, three flights on to a stone floor. His father was just coming in the door – a real coincidence this is, his father’s an insurance man – and he says, ‘Lay there, sonny, come back and lay down, for this lad was bolting upstairs again, frightened to death of getting the sack at one end and a belting from his father at the other.
He wasn’t hurt a mite. He went back and groaned no end. But unfortunately somebody had seen him – seen what he was doing. And the case came to nothing. We don’t employ boys who slide down banisters, you know.
Isabel didn’t know whether Mr Bentley was speaking the truth or not. She just looked at him with large eyes. Mr Palfreyman called from the other office, ‘Less noise, less noise, please, then ‘come here, Reggie, take these envelopes out and cut them. And give these letters to Mr Bentley.’
Bentley went on talking to the girl in his croaking voice: ‘Using up the insides of used envelopes as scrap paper. Dirty, messy old thing. You don’t know where they’ve been, do you? Things like that want destroying, I say. And there’ll be a hell of a mess over this fire. Excuse me, miss, I can’t help swearing in a small way – my old girl at home, she swears like a trooper – but it’s the second fire in three months, not that it’s our fault; it wasn’t started here; but any insurance company’d cut up rusty, what do you think?’
Isabel was warming her hands at the fire and looking round helplessly. ‘Who tells me what to do?’ she asked.
‘Well, I don’t, thank God, said Bentley piously. ‘But I can tell you one thing: dodge old Palfreyman like the devil. Stick to young Mr Julian, don’t get across with the office-boy, keep on looking as pretty as you do now, and you’ll get on all right?
‘Do you have any dusters?’ asked Isabel, suddenly resolute. In spite of his friendliness, she did not much care for Mr Bentley. The older man was peculiar, but she liked his loyalty. She would do something to get on the right side of him, help him, be as nice as she knew how.
‘You’ll find any amount in the pattern room.’
‘And where’s that?’
‘Through that door!’
She came back with an armful of dusters, soaked one in water, and began wiping the wet desks. She did not feel like the irresolute girl who had walked up to that bookstall. In a few minutes she was warm all over, her face flushed with the good work of clearing away an unwanted mess of water.
I’m doing something without Jem or anyone having to tell me, she thought happily. She had found a pail in the lavatory, and was busy wringing in her dusterful of water, when Mr Palfreyman called her.
She dried her hands on a handkerchief, and went into the private office. The old man was standing with his back to a very cheerful fire.
There were two chairs, two desks, and an ornamental brass coal-box.
Over the mantel was a curled map.
‘Miss Allat, I’m going to let you do something. You shall look after Mr Julian’s desk; see that the inkwells are always filled, blue-black, red, and copying. And that the nibs are in order. And fresh blotting-paper, plenty of it, always on hand. It is a great privilege; I have attended to this, and to Mr Julian’s father’s desk, for many years. Oh, and Miss Allat’ – he lowered his voice – ‘I should not talk to Mr Bentley a great deal. It is true he has been here for some years, but he has always acted as a stranger. He is not – Miss Allat, I grieve to tell you this – but he is not a gentleman. Miss Allat, he goes to funerals in a bowler hat. Now you may go back’
“Thank you very much, Mr Palfreyman. I shall be very pleased indeed to look after the desk. I will begin in the morning! She went out, wishing that the private office had been a sumptuous place and that Mr Julian would have flowers and a large picture of a very beautiful wife in a silver frame. But perhaps his wife was ugly. So many are, she thought wistfully.